But while the 'internal representations' as they are called are different from person to person there are a number of symptoms which are common to many scabiophobes:

A feeling of uncontrollable anxiety when you think about or are exposed to scabies

The feeling that you must do everything possible to avoid scabies

The inability to function normally because of your anxiety

Often, the knowledge that your fears are unreasonable or exaggerated but feeling powerless to control them

Scabiophobic symptoms can be mental, emotional and physical. The anxiety and fear can go from mild feelings of apprehension to a full-blown panic attack.

Typically, the closer you are to what you’re afraid of, the greater your fear will be. You can test the severity of your problem with this 2-minute online bed bugs phobia test.

But because the fear is a physical response to patterns of thinking about scabies and not the actual scabies almost all people with bed bugs phobia can create a very strong reaction just by using their mind.